1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to telephony, and more particularly to call notification.
2. Description of the Related Art
The proliferation of advanced telephony services has included services directed to call notification. One such service is caller identification or “caller ID,” which notifies a called party of the name and/or telephone number of the calling party. Call waiting is another service which notifies the called party of an incoming call when the called party is already on an existing call. This notification typically is a call waiting tone which is provided to the called party over the telephone line. By pressing the “flash” button on the telephone, the called party can speak to the incoming caller. The called party can return to the existing call by pressing the “flash” button again. The called party can hang up while connected to either call, and return to the other call. This affords the called party the option of taking the incoming call, ignoring the incoming call, or speaking temporarily with the incoming caller so as to arrange for a follow-up call.
The call waiting tone that is provided to the called party, however, provides no specific information about the incoming call. As a result, the called party has no way of knowing the nature of the incoming call and may choose to ignore potentially important incoming calls.